Knitting by the screen

When I lived closer to ‘civilization’ I was an enthusiastic moviegoer. There was a period in the 1990s when I saw practically every quality movie they showed in the theatres here. I had a part-time job in downtown Helsinki and often arranged my comings and goings so that I could leave the office early and pop in a matinee on my way home, most often in a cinema a couple of minutes from the office. Now that we have a 45-minute drive to the theatres and no longer any reason to make the journey on a regular basis I’m afraid we only see a handful of movies on the silver screen annually.

Yet we do see quite a lot of films on our own white screen. A few years ago, my husband invested in a first-class home cinema system, which has certainly proved to be money very well spent. It is in rather constant use this time of the year. We watch through the projector not only movies but also the few series we both follow. In fact, spending time by the screen is our main hobby during winter evenings and is helping us endure this – so it seems – never-ending cold and dark season when you don’t even need to pull down the blackout blinds no matter how early you are switching the projector on.

But it would feel a total waste of time to sit by the home screen idle. I would never feel this way in a cinema where I want to concentrate 100% without any popcorn or other disturbing refreshments, but at home I no longer feel at ease unless I’m knitting. As sitting by the screen is virtually the only time I’m knitting, it means my patterns must be simple and preferably in just one colour not to take too much of my attention. So it has been for the most part socks plus a couple of hoods in a simple knit 3, purl 3 rib.

Actually, there are two more screens by which I’m often knitting these days: the windscreen when we are driving somewhere during daytime (the above photo is from last winter; we haven’t seen this much sun in ages) and the upstairs TV screen when I’m watching something I have recorded for myself and it’s past my husband’s bedtime. 

Currently, I’m hooked on two Danish series, Forbrydelsen (the American remake is called ‘The Killing’) and the political drama Borgen (an NBC remake to follow). We have seen so many brilliant series from Denmark in recent years it’s no wonder they have gained wide international acclaim but I don’t believe in remaking something that’s already perfect. I’m definitely skipping the remakes. Well, I did watch some of the British Wallander episodes, much thanks to Kenneth Branagh but also because they were very well done. After all, the original Swedish series was only great, not perfect.